This little piggy went to market

Today I made my first totally successful grocery shopping trip. I never thought grocery shopping would be so difficult, or so gross.

I usually can't make it to the market early enough, usually by the time I get there, the meat and produce is mostly gone and all that's left is what no one else wanted. But today, Joel didn't have to be to work until 9, so he stayed with Will. Grocery shopping with a baby is extra difficult. They don't have carts, they only have baskets so I have to carry the baby and everything I want to buy. You also have to bag your own groceries which is hard enough without holding an infant. And, I have to walk there so I have to cart the baby and everything I bought, home in one trip. I can't bring my stroller because the store has three floors and you have to get on an escalator. I tried shopping with a stroller once, it was pretty laughable. In fact, a lot of people did laugh at me. I was trying to hold my basket full of stuff while manage to get the stroller and myself on the escalator. I barely made it and I vowed not to try that again!

 You also have to bring your own grocery bags, if you want plastic ones, they cost extra. It's actually a smart idea. I never forget to bring my reusable fabric bags for that reason.

So, my trip this morning. I managed to find everything I was looking for! This was a first. It's all written in Chinese with no English and the layout of the store is crazy, there are escalators that go everywhere and I've just barely figured out the different departments. Once I found all of my dry goods, I ventured into the meat department. I usually can't bring myself to go that far into the store. It smells bad. Once I got past all of the fish, crab, eels and turtles in tanks (which you catch yourself and take to the butcher counter where they kill it for you right there. At first, I thought it was also a pet store...but no. Those are main courses....) I made it to the chicken display. All the various chicken parts are just laid out on a counter and you take what you want and put it in a bag. There aren't even tongs! You just grab what you want and go. So everyone is touching this raw meat and then they go and touch other things, including my baby! Nobody has personal space here and handwashing is almost non-existent. So there is probably Salmonella and E-Coli all over everything in the store. That's why I hate taking Will with me to the market.


So, I plan on actually cooking my first real Western dinner tonight. We've had spaghetti and PB & J's but nothing that I've really spent any time on. I'm going to use my cute little Chinese crock pot (I feel better about eating meat here if it's been cooked for a long time) and make a Pinterest recipe. We'll see how it goes.

Our Chinese crock pot has 3 settings: warm, fast and automatic... not sure which one to use....

I really thought it would be easier to buy imported things. We didn't bring enough formula with us and I'm starting to freak out a little bit. I breastfeed as much as I can, but it's not enough. Since I was working and pumping this summer, my milk supply is not fabulous to begin with and then making the trip around the world and switching our nights and days really affected it. I hadn't been feeding Will at night for the last two months and suddenly, what was night time was now day time and I had a very hungry baby to feed. I used a lot of formula while my body caught up and now my milk supply is even less than it was before the move.  So, I searched the import stores for American formula because the Chinese kind is not generally considered safe; they don't have the same regulations as the US does. The stores have Australian imported formula so I need to do some research about it because that's my only option. And it's very pricy. I did find American Similac on the Chinese E-Bay equivalent, but Joel's teaching assistant said she would be wary of anything bought on that site. I think we might buy some just to check it out. We're running out of options. 

This next part may be boring, feel free to skip ahead. It's meant more for journaling than blogging. I mostly just want to write down a few thoughts so I will remember specific things about China when I go back and read this.

China has it's own unique smell, I wish I could describe it. It really bothered me when we first moved here, it was so pervasive. I couldn't get away from it. We joked the first couple of days that we would need a scented candle to keep China out of our apartment. Sometimes the air here is so thick that it feels like you can take a bite out of it.

Today when I was walking to meet Joel at the school, I took a closer look at all of the different houses on the hutong (narrow street). Some of the doors were open, which is unusual. Typically, when I walk this way, they are closed. The alley is lined with a brick wall on either side and there are doors in the wall that lead to individual houses. Some of the homes have a courtyard between the wall and the house and some houses open right out into the street. Looking through some of these doorways was like looking back 200 years. Joel was telling me that these homes are so old that they don't even have indoor plumbing, there is a public toilet halfway down the street that everyone has to share.

It's interesting to me that the government here in China has complete control and they spend so much time policing the internet and blocking sites like Facebook and YouTube and yet food safety here is a huge concern. They can heavily regulate internet and television and yet the food industry here has very few regulations. Joel and I read an article recently that talked about how someone had investigated a processing plant for dried fruit and found rotting peaches that they just added a bunch of chemicals to before drying and packaging. No one here will buy Chinese baby formula because it was found to be contaminated with Melamine, an industrial chemical that caused kidney failure in babies who drank it. And, once the scandal was made public, the formula was removed from the shelves and then repackaged and resold. 

Chinese Oreo's are amazing. They have all kinds of flavors like orange, mango, vanilla milkshake, grape and a few more I can't remember. But my favorites are the Oreo milk straws. They're like pirouette cookies that are hollow in the middle but the outsides are made out of Oreo cookie with a cream coating on the inside.

I miss having an oven! Ovens don't really exist here, which makes cooking even harder.

I think the McDonald's Big Mac sauce has a little more kick here, I've always been a closet Mickey D's fan but I think it tastes even better in China.

I wonder if China has a welfare system. I see lots of people on the streets begging for money. Most of them are handicapped or disabled. There is one man that's always in the same place. He's been badly burned and he doesn't have arms. He paints calligraphy with his toes and sells it on the road near our building. I think I want to buy one. There was another lady when we went to the zoo, I can still see her face, we were in line buying our tickets and she came and was asking us for money in Chinese. She had also been badly, badly burned all over her body. I'm ashamed to say that I didn't give her any. I didn't know how to react. No one has ever begged me for money before. I wish I would have given her some.

Teacher, Teacher!

So far, we really like the school that Joel is teaching at. The school has two different sections, the regular Chinese high school and the international division where Joel works. The international division is designed for Chinese students who want to go to the US and be successful at an American university. They bring American teachers to teach all of the subjects in English to help students prepare for studying in America. 

The school was founded in 1724 and is one of the best schools in Beijing. It is a public school but students have to have good grades and test scores to get in. The campus almost looks more a university than a high school; there is a Koi pond (where we saw a ferret yesterday!), fountain, and nicely maintained landscaping.

They have been really good to us so far. There is a dining hall just for the teachers and they serve a complimentary breakfast for all of the staff. Their lunches are very cheap, usually about 50 cents per person and the food is really good. I have gone to meet Joel for lunch a few times and I have always liked what they serve. We can also eat a very affordable dinner there if we want to. The only downside to eating there is using chopsticks! It takes me forever to eat my meal. Especially noodles, those are really tricky. I usually end up getting my face as close to the plate as I can politely manage and just using the chopsticks to shovel in what I can!

The school even provides Joel with a bilingual teaching assistant to help with all of his classes. She is very nice and speaks very good English, which is helpful when we need to pick her brain on how to say basic phrases in Chinese. Most of the teaching assistants teach one day a week for the teacher so that the teacher has more time to prepare and grade, which is so nice.

This is the courtyard at the school. It's really pretty, it has a lot of bright colors and intricate designs.

Another shot of the courtyard.

It's hard to tell in the picture, but this day was one of the clearest we have had since we've been here. Usually, it's so hazy from the pollution that we can't see very far. But there are mountains in the distance that we had no idea were there!

Tropical vacation anyone? We found this lovely little backdrop at our local mall and couldn't resist the photo opportunity!

On another note, we found a great imported goods grocery store. I bought cream cheese!! I never thought I would be so excited about such a simple food item. I haven't really had much dairy since we moved here. Cheese doesn't really exist in the Chinese diet and their milk is not refrigerated (gross, I know). Luckily I don't really like milk.

Beijing Aquarium = Awesome!

Today we were looking at a website that had the top 20 things to do in Beijing. One of them was the Beijing Aquarium and, since we've figured out the subway, we could actually get there on our own. So we packed up our baby and away we went down into network of tunnels underneath the city.

They had all kinds of cool stuff. I think my favorite were the Beluga Whales! There were two of them and they were so loud, you could hear them through the entire building. There was a diver cleaning the tank and the whales wanted to play but he wasn't having it. He was in the zone.

I was hoping for a shark but no such luck. They did have dolphins and sting rays and huge Sea Turtles though. It was a fun little excursion, too bad Will won't remember any of it!

Huge Sturgeon!

Church in China

 So, Will and I had our first day of church in Beijing today. (Joel had to give a presentation at school, so he couldn't come.) After our 25 minute subway ride it was so comforting to walk into our "chapel" and hear other saints singing Redeemer of Israel. I almost cried because it was so comforting to be there!

Our branch had a big group of kids from BYU Idaho who came here to teach English. They were leaving from Beijing to go to more remote villages throughout China. They wanted everyone from that group to meet in a separate room (which I didn't know because we were a little late!) and I just followed a big crowd of people to what I thought was Sunday school. So I sat down with Will and all of our stuff and slowly started to realize everyone else in the room was under 21 and single. I had ended up in the YSA class.... oops. I was too embarrassed to haul all of my stuff out of there so I just tried to get Will to lay quietly on my  lap and hoped no one would notice! Will, of course, hated that and so my plan completely failed and my face was bright red through the entire class. I did learn some cool stuff though. They have a virtual branch of the church for those members who are too far to attend one of the international branches. You call a toll free number and enter a pass code and, voila! You can listen to church on the phone. So cool!

I am continually amazed at the people here in China. Overall, we have found the Chinese to be very helpful and nice. And very understanding of us when we are completely unable to communicate with them! It's a common sight here to see teenagers walking arm in arm with their parents and grandparents, I love that. And I still cannot get over everyone's fascination with Will. Today on the subway, a nice lady gave me her seat since I had a baby. Will was totally conked out in his baby carrier that straps to my chest and his face was partially hidden behind the strap. This lady stood next to me and wanted to see his face so badly that she unhooked the carrier so she could see him! There really isn't a personal space boundary here.

On another note, this city is really amazing. There is ancient architecture right next to modern skyscrapers. And this city becomes even more lively at night. Street vendors come out of nowhere and occupy every inch of free space on the sidewalk selling anything you could imagine. The other night when we went outside, there was a group of people flying kites that had lights in them. China's version of fireflies, I guess.

The tall building in this picture is our apartment building. So far, we really like living here.

I saw these strange things at the supermarket the other day and couldn't resist putting up a picture. Weird cucumber maybe?

Seeing the sights

Oh wow, did we have quite the day today! The school booked a tour for us and we went all over Beijing seeing the sights.

First on the itinerary was the Forbidden City where the Imperial Families lived. The architecture was so impressive and the entire city is surrounded by a wall and a moat. What surprised me most was how many people wanted to take pictures of little Will! We were in the middle of this gorgeous city and people wanted pictures of our baby. I even had a few kids want to have their pictures taken with me, like I was a character in Disneyland or something.  

Next, our tour took us to the Temple of Heaven. This was especially impressive because the entire thing is put together without a single nail or fastener. It's made out of lego-like blocks that just interlock.

Our last stop was the Summer Palace where the Imperial family would go on Holiday. The palace is near a lake which is entirely man made. The Empress wanted her palace to resemble southern China so she had the lake made. Oh to be royal!

Will just took the whole day in stride. SO many people came up to us and took pictures of him, we were joking that we should charge per picture and get rich! He didn't seem to mind, he just smiled and charmed them all. We learned to keep moving though, the longer we stayed in one place, the bigger the crowd around his stroller would get!

Food in China

I did not think it would be that hard to find American food in China! To be fair, I guess we haven't really ventured out that much yet, but the grocery store was an experience I am not eager to repeat! I'm sure there's a "western- style" market out there, I just have to find it.

We did go to Pizza Hut last night for dinner, which is actually considered a classy restaurant here. This is where you take a date if you're trying to impress them. They have all kinds of weird & gourmet toppings here. You can get shrimp, steak, Atlantic salmon, abalone, corn, peas, and pretty much anything else you can think of on a pizza here. We managed to find a Hawaiian Pizza and ordered that because we were so excited to see something familiar! Maybe next time we'll be more adventurous. 

 Our pizza did come with an interesting dipping sauce: ketchup. Joel says it's the same way in Peru, everyone thinks that Americans put ketchup on everything!

China - The first days...

After a very long flight, we finally made it to Beijing. Will did so awesome, he charmed all of the Chinese ladies on the flight who kept coming over to look at him. 

Once we made it through customs and immigration (Which was surprisingly easy), we were out in the main lobby of the airport where there were a bunch of people holding signs. I was so sure there would be one with our name on it, but no! We walked the line of people three times but could not see a sign with our name on it. Here we were, the only three Americans in the lobby, dragging more than a few suitcases and we had a baby strapped to Joel's chest. We definitely did not blend in. 

After 45 minutes, we finally were able to find the lady that had a sign with our name on it and we got in a taxi van and made it to apartment at about 2:00 am Beijing time, which was only noon according to our body clocks. But, we were so exhausted from the flight that we were all able to sleep. 

In China, you have register as a foreign alien with the local police department in the first 24 hours you are there. Our apartment building did that for us, but they needed our passports to do it. In order to exchange dollars for RMB, you need your passport and it's actually a pretty long ordeal. So, because our front desk had our passports, we were unable to exchange any money and the one supermarket we were able to locate did not take a visa card (which was probably ok because it was a yucky looking place and I had no idea what anything was!). So all we had eaten in our first 24 hours were Clif bars and gummy dinosaurs. 

We're on day 2 here in Beijing and haven't really dared to venture out much yet. There are tall skyscrapers as far as the eye can see and it smells weird. But, I can't wait until we are better able to find our way around and can find some fun things to go see and do.

For now, we are just glad we made it safely and have something other than a granola bar to eat.